Hilarious Or Horrifying? You Decide.

Warning: This post is funny as Hell… to me. You might find it funny (that’s why I’m sharing it), find it distinctly UNfunny (more likely) or even downright terrifying. I’ve been wanting to write a Halloween post but I don’t have any awesome spooky tales to tell, so this is just something that happened while I pissfarted around on Facebook.

One word: CLOWNS.

My shady mate Shannon uploaded this today:

Which he then stuck on my sister’s wall. She bloody hates clowns. He knows this, having shared a house with her long enough to find out stuff to use against her.

Then my cousin Nikki and sweet Aunty Jessie joined the conversation;

OMG Jessie, you heartless, hilarious wench! And then Din’s comment, and then Jessie’s reply; I can totally hear her using her concerned singsong Lovely Auntie Jessie voice, the one she uses on the grandkids; but with trademark shit-stirring undertones: We’re grownups now, and therefore fair game.

I was laughing my arse off, a bit guiltily, because Justine and Nikki were clearly packing themselves. Because CLOWNS. I only found out about Justine’s clown thing a few years ago when I was joking around with Shan for ideas for his 30th and a dressup theme as psycho clowns came up – he told me Justine is coulrophobic. He didn’t use the actual term coulrophobic, he just implied that she was so thoroughly terrified of clowns that if she dressed up as one she might shit herself to death. Or something to that effect.

It just got better and better… or worse and worse, depending on which side of the CLOWNS ARE: FUNNY/SCARY fence you came down on.

BAHAHAHAAA SO FUNNY AND I AM AN INSENSITIVE BITCH EVEN TO MY OWN BELOVED FAMILY.

But it’s just that I don’t get it. I guess people with pet tarantulas wouldn’t understand my paralysing fear of spiders either. I mean really, what’s so scary about spiders? Break it down and they’re basically

1) A bug. Living their lives. I quite like many bugs. Dragonflies and ladybirds for example.

2) A bug with a bit of hair. I have hair. It’s not scary. At least not once I brush/tidy/remove it.

3) A hairy bug with eight legs. Eight legs? No biggie. I eat octopus for breakfast. Or I would, if someone got me a takoyaki griddle.

5) A hairy, eight-legged bug with too many eyes that moves unnaturally fast. Too fast for me to escape if it decided to chase me down. (IT COULD HAPPEN!)

6) Fangs. Venom. The ability to stick on walls behind your head and not be seen until your face is practically right next to it. And a big fat abdomen, so round and full of spider guts even the thought of hitting it with a newspaper or a shoe is just… ***GAAAHH NONSTOP SHUDDERING AND COLD SHIVERS UP AND DOWN MY SPINE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP!!!***

Aaah that’s better.

So we laugh in the face of fear (but mostly other people’s) and feel better. The “RIDDIKULUS!” charm was always a favourite. Second only to chocolate.

It got me thinking though, about fears. Especially with the kids. All fears are real to a kid, and something that we do to them now could possibly set them up with a not so fun phobia for their whole life. See the little girl in the funny meme up there? She’s not laughing. She’s running to her therapist.

Like us parents need more guilt!

Take Finn for example. I haven’t tested him on this, but due to two specific incidents when he was a toddler he could suffer from gerontophobia (fear of old people) or magosophobia (fear of magicians). The first one was when we were watching that terrifying children’s animated movie UP; The old guy grunted while getting out of bed, and Finn screamed and screamed. Likewise every time in The Wiggles Movie when he saw Wally the magician creeping about.

The HORROR!! JUST LOOK AT THE FANGS ON THAT BEAST DOROTHY!!! AUUGH AND THOSE SKIVVIES!!! What does the ‘G’ rating stand for – “GOD NO!!”?

Justine can trace her hatred of clowns back to a movie too – Stephen King’s IT. I think that might apply to a few people – Tim Curry is a great (demonic) character actor. What I took from that movie however was a short-lived wariness of storm drains. I’m not aware of anything in particular that Rory’s scared of yet, aside from the fact he makes himself scarce when the coffee grinder is on.

As for my arachnophobia, I can still remember a nightmare I had in primary school – I dreamt I woke up to find my bed and pillow swarming with centipedes, beetles, spiders and other nasties. I leapt off the bed to hide under Justine’s, but as I lifted the doona cover at the side of the bed a massive spider that took up the entire space under there reared up at me; in the instant before its fangs sank into my neck I woke up.

Damn u Gabe! Stop talking to your wife!
Well not all the time mind, just til she finishes reading my post.
Btw I was very impressed you managed to find and stalk me out of the millions with my moniker on Bookface; girlz gotz skillz! Superlibrarian research powers?

I assume the boys don’t have any clown-themed styling in their rooms then? Would you ever consider dressing Elijah up as one? He’d make the cutest li’l Pierrot, what with the ruffles and the cone hat with the pompoms!!
…Still spiders?

I hope I’m not violating protocol by commenting on something almost two years old, but I couldn’t resist. After all I’ve been a clown.
A scary clown.
A friend made a very low budget film about a guy who sees a UFO and becomes a laughingstock. In one of its more surreal moments he sits in a bar complaining about how terrible his life is. And off-camera I tell him I know how he feels. Then there I am: wig, clown makeup, outfit, and giant shoes. And I launch into a foulmouthed monologue about how tough my life is and this isn’t just a costume. All while downing shot after shot of whiskey.
While I’m no Tim Curry–although I’ve also donned garters and high heels, but that’s another story–I suspect if that film were more widely available I’d give quite a few children coulrophobia.

I’ll take comments on posts of any vintage – there’s no statute of limitations on my blog. Am glad you told that story, it’s beautiful! Haha! Low budget scary is the best. I’m so jealous you were in a movie – as well as having an author signed book I love… dammit your geek credentials are like, YODA level!
And the whiskey – was it stunt whiskey or the real thing?

It was stunt whiskey–tea in a whiskey bottle.
And I prefer to think that my geek credentials are at Emperor Palpatine level. Or at least they might be if my friend’s next project hadn’t fallen through. It was going to be a Star Trek: The Next Generation parody in which I’d play the villain.

Haha Palpatine. Were you going to be a villain with 90s hair and shoulder pads? Missed bucket list tick there. Were you a Next Gen fan or Classic and that’s why you wanted to take the piss out of it? Me, I like them both. Fave Classic Trek movie should be Khan but I have to say Voyage Home… I’m a sucker for the time travel ones. And new trek First Contact is possibly my favourite Trek ever!

Actually I was going old school with my villain look and spent hours studying Flash Gordon films from the ’30’s and imitating the guy who played Ming The Merciless.
Although now that you mention it he did have kind of a 90’s look–shoulder pads, plenty of eye makeup, shaved head. He was just 60 years early.
Anyway my friend’s film was taking the piss out of Next Generation–it was actually an update of an earlier parody of the original. But I love ’em all. Voyage Home and First Contact are definitely the best of the best Trek movies though.
What I love is there’s a local furniture company called Conn and every time their commercial comes on I have to yell “KHAN!!!”
Or at least I did until my wife made me stop.

Hahahahaa! Why did she make you stop? That wouldn’t have been annoying at all! 🙂 I love how Trek just worms its way into our everyday lives so seamlessly… I particularly love all the Picard memes! I wish I could post pictures in my comments section.